THE
CREATION OF THE PICKAX

Translated
by T. Jacobsen, Toward the Image of Tammuz and Other Essays on Mesopotamian
History and Culture, edited by W. L. Moran (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1970), 113-14.

The lord did verily produce
the normal order,
The lord whose decisions cannot be altered,
Enlil quickly removed heaven from earth
So that the seed, from which the nation grew, could sprout up from the field;
He quickly brought the earth out from under the heaven as a separate entity
And bound up for the earth the gash in the "bond of heaven and earth"
So that the earth could grow humankind.;
He created the pickax when daylight was shining forth,
He organized the tasks, the pickman's way of life;
Stretching out his arm straight toward the pickax and the basket,
Enlil sang the praises of his pickax.
He drove his pickax into the earth.
In the hole which he had made was humankind.
While the people of the land were breaking through the ground,
He eyed his black-headed ones in steadfast fashion.
The pickax and the basket build cities,
The steadfast house of the pickax builds, the steadfast house of the pickax
establishes,
The steadfast house it causes to prosper.
The house which rebels against the king,
The house which is not submissive to its king,
The pickax makes it submissive to the kingÉ
The pickax, its fate is decreed by father Enlil,
The pickax is exalted.